“‘People are buying these media center equipped PCs, but not using them,’ notes Ted Schadler, principal analyst at Forrester Research, a research firm based in Cambridge, Mass. ‘We ask people what they do in their home networks and virtually none of them share photos, music, or TV. They mostly use them to share Internet access,'” Michael Cohn reports for InformationWeek.
“To encourage more people to buy the products, Microsoft and Intel have jointly launched a marketing campaign called Digital Joy that is meant to educate consumers about what they can do with their PCs for entertainment, including television, music, and photos. Once again, they are playing catch-up with Apple,” Cohn reports. “‘Over the long haul, it is clearly a platform to distribute music and photos around the home, take your music library off your PC, and play it on your stereo,’ says Schadler. ‘But you can already do that with Apple AirPort Express, which is a standout for distributing music.'”
Full article here.
Reason number 62,564 to switch – Airport Express.
http://www.elgato.com/
http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/index.php
http://www.miglia.com/products/video/alchemytv/
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/airtunes.html
http://www.plextor.com/english/news/press/PVRMac_pr.htm
http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_converters_studiodvtv
Please, Apple will always play catch up with Wintel MCPC’c. I’ve been streaming Music to my Stereo for years…I cant believe they would shed this FUD. It maybe easier for the average user to use an Airport Extreme but that doesnt change the fact that people have done it for a long while now…Where is the mac that I can change channels on my Sat and record 3 channels simultaneously ???? (Im sure they will “innovate” that one too).
There isnt one.
Its unfortunate that most of the crap that comes out of Apple isnt really “Innovative”, its more like improved decade old technology.
PS: Unix anyone…????
NoMacForYou,
Sounds like you are full of FUD. Why are you even over on MDN if you don’t care for Apple or its products. Either you are just here to flame, or you are secretly lusting after Apple products because they are inherently designed better than other computer companies?
Re-NoMacForYou
You can do most anything with a PC that you can do with a PC, the question is can be done easily and reliably. The problem is not with the hardware- LINUX will run very well on any modern PC. The problem is Windoze- the most insecure and unreliable OS ever offered to the consumer- period.
replace 1st sentence, last half with Mac.
NoMacForYou: Get real man. I have never once wanted to use my Mac to change TV channels, my sat or digital cable receiver seems to do that just fine thank you. I have, however, for as long as I have been playing MP3s on my Mac, wanted a way to play them on my Stereo in the other room without having to run wires. I have tried some of the FM transmitters, but the sound was sh*t. AirPort Express does the job perfectly, simply and cleanly. Add the Keyspan Remote Express and I now have the perfect music streaming solution for my needs. Innovation doesn’t mean inventing from scratch, it means improving how we get things done. How many Unix vendors have been developing Unix for how many years? Apple came along and in 3 years became the #1 Unix vendor. Why? Innovation. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
NoMacForYou
Sure these capabilities have been available for a long time, but certainly not in a form that most consumers can operate easily. I think the point the article was making is that the MCs are still a bitch to setup and use for most folks and so they are not being used for what they were intended.
Man, I have been streaming viruses to my friends’ PCs for years. Where is the Mac application that can do that? Answer: there isn’t one. That’s right. Macs don’t have any good applications for quick and easy dissemination of viruses. Not only that, they don’t plan to have one any time soon.
Reason? Unix anyone?
Enderle used to work for Forrester, he’s been quiet recently, come on Rob, entertain us!
Entertaining comments here:
http://www.macdailynews.com/comments.php?id=P3637_0_1_0
NoMacForYou
Please stay around. You make me laugh and inspire me to stay with Apple.
Question; can you hear what they say on tv ?
You too can benefit from Microsoft money
check this out
http://seattle.craigslist.org/tfr/50019747.html
NoMacForYou…
Bored people like you who say things just to get a reaction on message boards are quite sad. Isolation from real human interaction brought you to this point. You need to get out. Please understand that this is constructive criticism. Next.
awww thurrott doesn’t agree with the MDN title.. which automatically makes it true
First, after reading the full article, I had no idea that the choices of media center PCs were so incredibly confusing!! It also mentioned that
Next, the article states “Only about a million units have sold so far in the two previous iterations of MCE since the platform was introduced in 2002.” Now, compare that to Apple’s quarterly report ( http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/13results.html ) of “Apple shipped 836,000 Macintosh� units… during the quarter,” This equates to over 6 TIMES as many Macs are being sold as “Media Center” PCs!!
Finally, when it comes to TV on your computer, Apple has been there and done that.. and left it far behind. In Oct ’93, Apple introduced the “Macintosh TV”. Although it was short lived, the video/tuner card that it used became a briefly popular addition to those already owning an LC or Performa. ( http://www.apple-history.com/noframes/body.php?page=gallery&model=tv )
As Steve has said many times, people use computers and TVs differently. On computers, they are active users. But on TVs, people are passive viewers. Personally, I think the hidden downfall of TV-via-computer is a rather simple one: It is too hard to eat pizza and buttery popcorn while on your computer.
Actually, airport express isn’t that innovative. It’s interesting convergence of basestation and audio streaming, but I’m afraid I say something better about three years ago, working in an ordinary home. It was a device that wirelessly connected to a PC serving music and with a display and remote control too, and proper phono connects to hook up to a hi-fi.
And it was badged as a Dell.
I’ve no idea how easy it was to set up, but it was easy to use. I only ever saw one. And I was jealous. Airport Express really needs that remote and display, or to allow Roku etc to stream the protected AACs.
Macs don’t have any good applications for quick and easy dissemination of viruses
NoMac…
you’re absolutley right. The day macs can send and recieve email will be a wonderouse one. And yeah it’ll hardly be innovative, just copying what MS has had for years.
Reread NoMacForYou’s last post, critical of Mac’s inability to disseminate viruses.
Either he was stupid enough to walk into that one, or he just put one over on us. Generally, people who write compound sentences and use words like “dissemination” aren’t stupid . . . and aren’t PC users.
You’ve been had.
Or perhaps today’s Americans, Mac or PC, just don’t know what dissemination means.
No, I’m not a foreigner, just an American teacher with a front row seat to the dumbing down of America, or in this case, the deterioration of our society’s sense of humor from irony to SNL sarcasm, insult, and innuendo.
In its very essence Apple is anti-mediocrity – not very comfortable to a culture (of PC users) that has fallen in love with mediocrity – at the behest of a collective corporate profit motive machine that uses social science research methods to more easily predict & systematically simplify consumers’ tastes in the arts, entertainment – and tech.
It seems to have escaped people’s attention here that anyone can send a post under whatever name they like, and that the second NoMacForYou’s post was not written by the same NoMacForYou as the first. It was written by a Mac user (hence the use of good words like “dissemination”), and was just a clever way of turning the first NoMacForYou’s words back at him. I enjoyed the witty reposte.
NoMacForYou III
It is quite evident mac users are as smelly as microsoft users. Only since they are on the same level that they compare themselves to each other.
Is it THAT important to have the dominating market share, or is having the TOP quality products for your people more important? The priorities for Apple are changing into the business side of things. This totally puts me off Apple prods.